Week 2 Assignments

Extended Response Week 2:  

Active Growth: Experienced by Katie Visker as Learner and Educator 

As is sit in reflection over the past week, the words that come to mind are growth and connection. I want to emphasize that I am viewing this growth as a continual action. I am continuing to grow as an educator, learner, mother, friend, wife, human being. Being at CEM these past two weeks has been incredibly impactful. I am forever grateful that I am able to create this invaluable memories and connections with fellow participants, instructors, and students. I will leave this place forever changed with a piece of Costa Rica in my heart and a piece of my heart in Costa Rica. With this said, I can focus my reflection specifically as an educator and student. In this reflection I will focus on the points this week that were most impactful, the most useful and important learning that I had this week regarding learners, learning, and, more specifically, language learning. 

Now, more than ever before, the connection between learning and teaching are forever linked, heavily weighted, bound to each other. Let me give a little background to my thinking and my sentiment. I was in school to become a teacher over a decade ago. From that point on I was SO focused on being a great teacher – providing great teaching moments. Being here, at CEM, I have been allowed to put in questions everything I thought I knew about teaching. I have come to the conclusion that teaching without learning is useless, utterly useless. In order to be an effective teacher, one must put the learning and learners first. As I think about going home and sharing what I have learned with my colleagues and putting these new-found practices into action, I have a new process for teaching that is significantly more learner focused. For example, I will be sure to make my lessons more appealing to how my learners learn. I will make real life applications. In the case of vocabulary and grammar, I will think about the ECRIF framework. I will think first about what I want students to produce during the Fluently Use stage. Then I will create a lesson that leads to that nicely. This is just a brief example of how I have grown in my views as an educator.  

I will now reflect on one of my teaching experiences from this year and how the learners learned in my class. Here is a bit of a description from my second teaching this week, on Wednesday I teach beginner students in the Rancho classroom. I taught a grammar lesson on plural nouns when –s and –es are added to the end of a noun to make it plural. With the –es ending I focused on words ending in –o, h, and x, such as tomato & potato, box, peach, etc. I created the following objective for the lesson: SWBAT: use 4-7 regular plural nouns in order to describe a shopping list for items in a supermarket in a role-play.  

The following excerpt from my hot reflection accurately summarizes how I felt as I was teaching: “From 6-9 o’clock I felt a variety of emotions and feelings from – nervous, scared, stressed, concerned, in and out of present, I felt – yes, felt – very hot and sticky, I felt at times I was fully owning the lesson, activities, the students, the pacing, etc. And I had moments, in the middle when I realized I needed to make adjustments.” As soon as I finished teaching, I felt one thing very, very strongly, and that is support – support from my team. Here is one more excerpt from my reflection. “Something that is hot on my heart is the way I feel. I feel loved and supported by my team. Celina told me my lesson was ‘great!’ Great! From the grammar expert, that is the highest praise. All teammates greeted me with joy and support at the end of my lesson. 

Self-doubt slowly swept away.” Writing this now, days removed from the teaching I feel gratitude. I am grateful for both of my teaching experiences from this week. I don’t wish to relive either. They can exist in my heart, mind, and memory. If I was to go back, I would use what I learned to make the changes I believe would improve student learning. Both teaching moments and memories and feelings feel real and relevant and also a bit distant. This whole experience at CEM does a strange thing to time. What happened a mere few days ago feel like a lifetime. My feelings of self-doubt that I felt while teaching have become diluted. Those thoughts and feelings have been eclipsed by the learning I am doing and the work ahead, the work I am doing now. I can go into next week with more knowledge and experience. Each day is a day to try it all again.  

This third section that is asking me to analyze and summarize student learning actually makes me smile and chuckle to myself. I shared this with my group this week that half way through my lesson, at about 25 minutes in, when Chad and I both noticed, I was bringing students back to the actual grammar point that I was attempting to teach. Ha! It was as if the light bulb turned on in my mind and shouted -- “Your students don’t know what they are supposed to be learning!” I’m so grateful I am allowing myself to be open and flexible here. I have a tendency, like many, to focus too much on the mistakes and I am just not doing that. It happened. I learned what I needed to do. I adjusted. My less than ideal opportunity allowed me to utilize a style of, to quote Chad, “Discovery teaching, where you can guide students to the rules by helping them notice patterns of example language.” And I learned how I would do it differently. Isn’t that the point of all of this? I have a code in teaching that says, “mistakes are where the new learning goes.” I am having so many opportunities to learn and I am so thrilled by this. So, to answer the question of was the objective achieved? I would say, yes. Partially. A few students (3+) were able to recognize the pattern and share it with the class. At the end, all were able to participate in the Fluently Use phase which also demonstrated student learning. In the future, students will enjoy learning the grammar earlier than 25 minutes in to the lesson. They will have opportunities to say and show their understanding. One of the grates things I think students benefited from was encountering that in English, there is multiple was to make things plural. For example, in Spanish, students know to and –s to the end of the word to make it plural. In this class, students were able to see that English allows for –es endings as a rule for plurals as well. 

As I reflect on my experiences observing other teachers this week, I have two vivid thoughts, 1. When I watch the instructors/trainers teach, they make teaching look so easy and student learning is always, always apparent to me. It is a true inspiration, one that I aspire to. 2. I have learned something from each of my teammates. Sidar is captivating and fun; students laugh and learn with Sidar. Ana’s lessons come to mind as being very well throughout, clear, and student centered. From my perspective, she demonstrates an understanding of students as they learn a new language. She seems very intentional in her lessons, from beginning to end. Aryon gets his students up and engaged as they learn new content. Celina is a passionate teacher who is committed to providing her students with accurate English language learning opportunities. I refer to her as “Mrs. Grammar” and often go to her for support to make sure I am providing what the students most need. Here are some examples of when I saw student learning and how I knew the learning was being achieved. 

Students are able to successfully participate in the Fluently Use phase. They are using the target language to communicate about things such as: the weather, what someone isn’t wearing, sports they like, greetings, locations in a town, etc. to name a few. 

Students were using understanding to put sentences together and match target language to meaning.  

Students were heard practicing the target language independently, during class, in and out of activities. 

Students were able to recall previous lessons in the weeks be demonstrating use of the target language after the lesson in which the content was taught.  

Being a present and active observer in this course is proving very beneficial and meaningful. I am able to see a lot of great examples from my instructors and some examples and what I call non-examples from my peers. I am honored to be learning and growing in my learning and teaching here at CEM. 

In conclusion, I want to focus a bit on all the learners taught me this week. Some questions I have that I am actively working on relate to how to best utilize materials so that things can be reused and so that I can be the most efficient with resources and the way time is invested in my classes. I am open to ideas for how to improve in this way. I am also open to hearing ideas about what I can and should really utilize in order to maximize student learning. This word is powerful and when I sit with it, I feel like I am still actively learning what it means to maximize student learning. Thank you for reading. Thank you for your time and constant support. 

DAPA 1: Encountering: Teacher’s Family  

DESCRIPTION
It is seven o’clock at night. I am teaching beginners in the Rancho classroom. After a quick game to A.S. about what names/titles the class knows about family members, I introduced my family to the class by way of sharing two photos. I explained that we would learn some vocabulary that can be used to describe people. I walked around the have circle and brought around two photos so that each student could see my family. Each photo was much smaller than an 8x10. I noticed students were listening. I spoke as I walked. I explained that I had 4 siblings. I have a way of using my had/fingers to identify me in the order with my siblings. I hold out my family like I am giving the class a high five then I start with pointing to my pinky. I explain that I have one sister, Kelley, on brother, David (we call him Dave), one brother, Dan, me, and, by pointing to my thumb, one younger brother, Dawson. I restate that I have four siblings and repeat the motion with my hand and pointer finder. Then I go around a second time with the photo of my parents also. After that, I place the two photos up on the whiteboard and begin introducing the eight words that make up my target language for this lesson. One word at a time, I used the words to describe my family, using the eight words. Dave & Dan are tall. Kelley is short. My mom is shy. My dad is serious. My family is friendly. I am friendly. My brother, Dawson is funny and young (compared to me). My parents are old.  One word was left so I shared a photo of my two boys – Henry & Jack. I asked the class to decide, “Who is shy?” while I also made somewhat why body language. I compared the boys to a dog and cat. The class laughed and demonstrated an understanding of the word shy in this context.   Having a paper with all family members could have been a nice gift to students.   Teacher could have students take a moment to talk about their family with a partner.  Too much teacher talk time.
ANALYSIS
INTERPRETATION	GENERALIZATION	ACTION PLAN
Something that helped student learning is that by sharing these personal photos, the teacher became more human, more a part of the learning community, and ultimately more relatable.	Student learning becomes more meaningful when done in community with the support of relatable teacher.	I will continue to bring parts of myself into the classroom so that students know I am relatable.
Another thing that helped student learning is that a clear, memorable photo was shared to make the meaning of “shy” more vivid and memorable.	Students benefit from learning that is creative, vivid, and ultimately memorable.	I will remember to make learning creative, vivid, and memorable.      Specifically, when planning I will ask this question to guide my preparations: “What are two things I can do to make this lesson personal and meaningful for my learners?
Something that I think hindered the student learning relates to the size of the photos. They were too small to truly be effective for students to interact with.	Learning is more achievable when efficient materials are used to facilitate the learning.	In the future, I will consider the size of the class and how that impacts the types of materials used. For example, when sharing photos, I can use my computer screen or a projector and PowerPoint, print larger photos, or provide smaller photos to groups.
Something that may have hindered student learning is that they were left with some gaps in the family vocabulary.	?	Next time I teach this lesson, I will print a little half sheet of paper for each person to take with them after the lesson so they can better learn the names/titles of family members.

DAPA 2: Activating Schema – Wednesday - “There is a bird on my head!” 

DESCRIPTION
It was ten minutes after eight o’clock at night. I was teaching beginners in the Rancho classroom. Sixteen students were sitting in chairs in a half circle. In order to activate schema and half a little fun, I decide to introduce a favorite author and book series with the class called    Engaging and models use of language and photos add context.  Demonstrates taking a noun and making it plural
ANALYSIS
INTERPRETATION	GENERALIZATION	ACTION PLAN
Something that helped student learning and understanding of the story is the fun, simple pictures in the book and how the book was read – the pace, pronunciation, and then the way the book could be seen by everyone. Students were interested in the story and actively listened.	Based on what I observed, I think students generally enjoy having books read aloud to the whole class.	In the future, I will be sure to include interesting texts in my class.      Specifically, I will ask:  Is this text interesting to students?  Is the level appropriate to the students? (-1) (+1)
Using the white board during A.S. helped student learning. I wrote bird and birds on the board and posted a photo of one bird and two birds. Students knew to listen to and look for examples of when there was more than one noun.	Based on what I already knew about learning styles, I think that using the white board to include information furthers supports visual learners. It is important to present information in a variety of ways.	In the future, I will be sure to choose materials that appeal to a number of learning styles.      I will make my lessons appealing to visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile learners.
Something that hindered the learning is that in the context of a 50 minutes lesson, the A.S. should take only 2-3 minutes. Reading this story took a total of 10 minutes which is way too long for this part of a lesson.	I believe that Activating Schema (A.S.) should be an activity that take around two to three minutes.	Next time, I will keep my A.S. to a brief 2-3 minutes.      One idea I have is to show 3-4 pictures from the book. I will say 4 simple sentences to demonstrate no bird, one bird, two birds. Then show three more photos – eggs, hatched, and on Piggie’s head.
Something that definitely hindered the student learning is that the vocabulary words were not clarified directly after the A.S. and Encounter stages.	Based on what I already know about ECRIF, I know that clarification of content is necessary in order to maximize student learning.	Next time I will organize my lesson and materials in a way that support students clarifying the concept and vocabulary earlier.   Specifically, I will use the white boards with the words already written on and have students add the correct ending.

In close, this week has been a huge week of growth. I am actively growing as a learner and an educator. I am eager to share these valuable skills with my collogues. I know I am still learning and growing. I believe I will continue growing each day and am excited about this continued transformation. My hope is that these new values, skills, and practices will accompany in the states. I feel so supported here and know that support is just a question away. Leaving in two weeks makes me feel like the training wheels will be off of my bike and I wonder if I’ll have the skills and ability to successfully ride one my own. My intuition says I will. It may not be pretty. It may be wobbly but I know I can do it. And should I find myself needing support and clarity, it is just an email or message away. Thank you for reading.   

Katie 

I am pleased to have read your Extended Reflection this week because I got to learn a bit more about you and how this training has changed you as a teacher and eventually as a human being. 

I notice that you have made a great bond with your peers (teaching team) and that you are learning not only from them but also from your students. 

I encourage you to continue writing Descriptions like the one in your first DAPA because you provided a lot of details, and to keep on being concise on your Analysis in which you also used the right tenses. At the same time I invite you to pay close attention to simple details because you left one of the generalizations of the first DAPA in blank and I was wondering how you managed to come up with an action plan for it. 

One last thing I want to share with you is to encourage you to continue being open to learning and to feedback on your practice teaching for they will both make you a better teacher and if for any reason you need help from a 3,524-mile-away person, do not hesitate to WhatsApp or email me because I will be more than happy to offer a helping hand.  

Rubén